The Puppet King
by LittleWingedMage
Summary: Red gets himself into a whole lot of trouble when he can't stop laughing.


**A/N: This is not just a one-shot! I'll continue it as soon as possible. Do review if you enjoy it!**

Red burst out laughing, slapping Purple across the face. Purple himself seemed somewhat surprised by the action, but he too couldn't stop laughing. And laughing. And laughing.

Red slapped him again, but neither of their demeanours changed, even as Red's slaps grew more frequent and more intense.

"Stop it!" Purple managed to croak through a laugh, tears streaming down his face – but he just wound up leaning on Red, his entire body shaking as he struggled to breathe. Red didn't stop, however, which only somewhat added to Purple's chagrin. Still, they both seemed to be having a good time, despite the bruises that were already starting to appear on Purple's head.

Red seemed to assume this meant he could keep going, long after Purple had grown quiet and only his laugh scraped the air. Red just guessed his cohort had just run out of breath, but he slowed his punches when he couldn't feel his partner moving against him.

Pausing, he pushed Purple off of him – who just flopped on the floor. Chuckling, Red hovered over to him and kicked him a little.

"Come on, it wasn't _that _funny."

Purple didn't move.

Awkwardly kneeling down, Red patted him on the shoulder and shook his body. Huh.

"Oh come on, stop playing around."

Already however, the laughter had stopped dead in Red's throat. His grin had faded, and a sickly feeling was growing in his gut.

"Purple?"

Silence.

Oh god. Oh god, what the fuck? He'd killed him. He! His best friend, had actually _killed _him!

More than anything however, what was he going to do with the body?

I mean, he could hardly say he'd killed him to the control brains or the public – his reputation would be down the toilet and… He hadn't meant to kill him – but who would believe that? There'd been rumours circulating since day one that they'd have power struggles, and while that was true on… a very uh, shallow level? Like over lasers and smoke machines and things but honestly they'd never gotten into a fight that actually warranted his _murder. _

They'd just been laughing for fuck's sake!

Okay. Okay, he had to calm down. Oh FUCK, no, no they had a meeting with one of the control brains in about half an hour. How the hell was he supposed to cover this up? Uh, uh, uh, okay. Looking around, he grabbed a blanket and threw it over Purple's body. Okay, this would do for now. He was sick and needed his rest. No one would question it – I mean, who would want to disturb a sick _Purple_.

Man. He couldn't believe HE had been the one to fuck up. If anything he would have expected Zim to do this, not one of them but… well, such was life, he shrugged.

Alright. He was starting to calm down. Hovering up and down the room, he burst out laughing again. Man, this was just way too surreal. He knew Purple would have been laughing too, and thinking that just made him laugh even harder. Thinking back to the joke that had KILLED him too wasn't helping him stop laughing.

When he was called up to the Control Brain's room, his laughter really didn't cease. He was finding it uncharacteristically difficult to control himself as he stood there in front of what were basically his bosses, tears welling up in his eyes. Fuck.

"Where's your co-Tallest?" a booming voice demanded.

Snickering, Red managed to spit out, "Uh, sorry Sir, but he's in the bathroom."

"Uh… Okay then, I guess we can do this without him."

The conversation dragged on for a while, Red calming himself down as he wound up getting into the finer details about Operation Impending Doom II. Progress reports were generally boring, but they were generally simple at least. Right now he really couldn't think on an intellectual level, anyway (not that he ever really could, but still.)

As some amount of time passed however, the brain appeared to grow irritated, "Where is that purple one?"

"Oh uh, I dunno. He probably got lost or something. Do you want me to go look for him?" Red offered, a charming grin slicing his features.

"YES! It is imperative that he is here for this meeting," the brain stated.

Alrighty, Red thought as he turned and swept out of there. He was really going to have to think of something. Meanwhile, the brain contemplated whether Irkens really needed to go to the bathroom.

Finding Purple's body undisturbed, he picked up the note he'd left by his side which read "SICK, DO NOT RESUSCITATE." Crumpling it up and tossing it at Purple's head, he snickered a little before bending over to pick him up.

Grumbling, he realized how heavy his co-tallest was. Wondering why he wasn't floating, he glanced down at Purple's hover belt – noticing the brand logo "LIFE OPERATED HOVERING BELT."

"Oh yeeaahh," he stated offhand, dropping the body. Well, he could undress him, he considered – that armour was probably the heaviest part, but it really kind of would look bad if he dragged in the naked, dead body of his co-tallest to present to the control brains.

Right, okay, he was gonna have to use the puppet.

Picking up the note, he uncrumpled it and scribbled underneath (with his laser pen), "PS: Contagious."

Giggling a little, he dropped the note back down on Purple's now uncovered body – and hovered over to a machine on the wall. Connecting to a database where he'd uploaded the puppet designs – he ordered one to materialise by his side.

After some cheery music played along with an advert for Vortian Slave Girls who were apparently just "dying" to meet him, the puppet fell onto the floor. Smiling, he picked it up over his shoulder and went back to the meeting room with the control brain.

Dropping it by his side, the life-sized puppet of Purple sat on the floor, his head lolling sadly on Red's side.

"He's not feeling too good," Red said, shaking his head and swallowing a chuckle.

"He looks kind of… not good?" the brain asked, "But never mind. Did the red one tell you everything?"

Oh. Damn. Subtly putting his hand behind "Purple's" head, he made him nod, and, sucking in his breath he spat out in a high pitched tone, "Yeahhetoldme eveeeeerything! Yep just everything!"

"Uh," the control brain merely stated. "Okay, good, then we can continue with the meeting."


End file.
